Zach on Film: Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

1. 

   gary on December 18, 2015 11:32 am

   MOSTLY SPOILER FREE RESPONSE

   I saw it last night!!! Was wonderful overall. I completely agree that it is a beautiful film. Mostly well written and mostly well acted. Action scenes were pretty awesome.

   Stephan, i agree with your comment about there being a bit too many parallels with the original movies. There’s a fine line between homage and copying, and at times it felt soooo homage-like that it was almost a reskin of the original, and so was kind of distracting. Had the side effect being kind of predictable. Other than that — Boyega chewed the scenery a bit, and I thought some of the Han/Leia stuff was a bit awkward. I couldn’t tell if the awkwardness was script or acting or both. Might have even been intentional awkwardness given the situation.

   I disagree on the hologram thing. There’s a long history of the big bad talking to the bigger bad via hologram in Star Wars, so I think most people would have assumed, as soon as they saw it (I did). I do agree on the helmet thing though.

   Overall I really liked it. I’d put it just after the original 3, but far far ahead of the prequels. I’m actually more excited for the movies to come, because maybe then they won’t lean so heavily on the original Star Wars tropes and we’ll get to see what Abrams can really do with this universe.

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     gary on December 18, 2015 2:42 pm

     PS: the Zootopia trailer brought the house down almost as much as Star Wars.
     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bY73vFGhSVk

     Reply
2. 

   stellarleader on December 21, 2015 8:45 am

   I just started listening, but I wanted to comment that while I did not cry when the credits opened, I shouted a “yes!” that was accompanied by applauses and other manifestations of happiness. At that moment I knew it was going to be a fantastic experience

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     Redsfreaky on December 25, 2015 9:48 pm

     Lol I shouted “yay” and no one but my husband responded at all… stupid not excited people WHY?
     Then I pretended they were not there. And had so much fun!

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3. 

   stellarleader on December 21, 2015 12:32 pm

   OK. I’ve finished listening now. Some very spoilery thoughts:

   * I watched the movie on Sunday at 10:30 pm on IMAX 3D. The room was crowded and I know all the previous showings on that same room were soild out because I couldn’t get tickets for any of them.
   * The 3D was beautiful. It never bothered me, it never felt forced.
   * I really hope that Rey is not related to Luke. It’s time we have some force-sensitive character outside of the Skywalker family. If she ends up being Luke’s daughter I’m not gonna be mad, but I’d prefer it other way.
   * I really hope Jar Jar was on one of the planets that got destroyed.
   * Although we know that the emperor-like figure was a hologram, I want that once we met him, he’s still very tall, just for the sake of it.
   * Finally, how I rank the movies: Episode V, VI, VII, IV, III, I and II. “Empire” is just too good and I really like “Return of the Jedi”. And having watched all 6 movies recently, I can tell you that “Attack of the Clones” is much worse than “Phantom Menace”.

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4. 

   Nick S. on December 23, 2015 6:55 pm

   Great episode, guys.
   I’m mostly on the same page as Stephen regarding the homages to the original films. I was okay with everything: the droid that carries important data, the cantina etc, but when they shoehorned in yet another Death Star I thought that was too much. Overall, however, I really enjoyed “The Force Awakens”. It felt like a Star Wars movie. ‘Nuff said..

   By the way, the original “Star Wars” was nominated for a best picture Oscar.

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5. 

   Lizzie on December 25, 2015 1:00 pm

   I personally am excited to see who loses a hand in episode 8

   Reply

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